[Hexen] Serpent: Resurrection [New version 09/2017]

[oODemonologistOo]

I get a script 974 missing error on Qinefer's dagger, probably the melee bonus is missing.

[Ed the Bat]

I get a script 974 missing error on Qinefer's dagger, probably the melee bonus is missing.

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 75#p694361

[krokots]

Is there any possible way to get the RPG system work in coop?

[Ed the Bat]

Is there any possible way to get the RPG system work in coop?

It could work. These maps, however, would be a serious mess to adapt to co-op.

[Gez]

The latest official version is GZDoom 1.8.2

Nope. 1.8.4. But Graf is still locked out of his personal site and hasn't taken Eruanna's offer of moving GZDoom back to DRD Team, so you have to go to the GZDoom forum to find it.
http://forum.drdteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6158

[Ed the Bat]

The latest official version is GZDoom 1.8.2

Nope. 1.8.4. But Graf is still locked out of his personal site and hasn't taken Eruanna's offer of moving GZDoom back to DRD Team, so you have to go to the GZDoom forum to find it.
http://forum.drdteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6158

Yeah, wasn't aware of that at the time. Never used those forums. Then again, considering the fatal error bugs in 1.8.4, such as the A_AlertMonsters crash, I'd really see no reason to choose it over a development build.

[krokots]

Is there any possible way to get the RPG system work in coop?

It could work. These maps, however, would be a serious mess to adapt to co-op.

Just the RPG system and weapons, i would play in original hexen.wad. I tried to run it on 2 pc's, but players couldn't roll their stats. I could have done something wrong in configuration, 'cause i'm a total noob when it comes to setting up multiplayer games.

[Ed the Bat]

I've never played with the RPG system in Hexen, so it may not work for co-op as it is now. I don't know. But it should certainly be possible to make it co-op compatible. That wasn't originally part of my plans, though. I originally began making revisions to SR so I could play the maps with other mods/add-ons. I felt the RPG system was one of its biggest weaknesses, and the game would be significantly better without it. As such, I had no interest in a package that was ONLY the RPG system.

However, if there's enough demand for it, I suppose I'd be willing to look into revising the RPG package once I feel I'm done cleaning up SR. Heck, I could probably just port over work I already did with that.

[evouga]

In this project dead now?

In any case, I'm back, four years(!) later, after recently beating the WAD again with Sallazar on Heroic difficult, with some more detailed feedback.


Overall comments:

1. RPG system.

Overall, the RPG system adds a quite enjoyable extra wrinkle to Hexen -- it made me super OCD about fully clearing all maps (which is a good thing). Of the stats themselves, Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom are by far the most useful. Dexterity feels like a waste of points -- I ended up buffing Dex to 5 to make the game *less annoying* to play, but if I had wanted to be a purist about stats I could have just bought more jump boots for those areas instead. If a stat's only purpose is improving quality of life, that's a problem IMO. Maybe add a "dodge chance" (chance that an enemy melee attack deals no damage) that increases with Dex? Sorcery was useful primarily for its magic point regeneration -- I'm not sure I would have invested any points there as a non-mage.

I hit level 20 fairly early into the last set of levels (Palace). Obviously there's no point trying to level up after facing Eidolon, but it would have been nice to have a slightly higher level cap. Maybe in addition, add some bonus EXP for non-combat-related tasks (finding secret areas, etc).


2. Magic system

As Sallazar, obviously I made heavy use of the new magic system. The two memorized spells are extremely useful and I spammed them throughout the game. Power almost makes up for the (extremely annoying, but justified) removal of the Sapphire Wand. Invincibility is perhaps a little too good to be the second memorized spell -- during the deadliest encounters I would just turn on both invicibility and power, charge into the room and recklessly kill everything. Bringing back the summon spell in its place would perhaps promote more tactical gameplay in character with the mage.

I don't really see the point of the other spells, to be honest. I used a few of them on bosses and huge crowds, but they suck away a ton of magic points to do what I could have done for free using just the power spell and a bit of patience. A few "magic nukes" are good but maybe add some utility to the others to make them more tempting (e.g. for X seconds, all nearby enemies take continuous damage and you gain that much life; or have the Penetrate beams restore mana each time you hit an enemy, etc.)

Magic regeneration for Sallazar was a great change -- he used to be just a worse version of the cleric. However, increased regeneration speed and magic cap is on its own not that impressive for spending stats on Sorcery. Maybe also add that increasing Sorcery causes you to slowly memorize spells: for example, for every point of sorcery, there is cumulative 10% chance that you do not use up a scroll when casting a spell (so that you fully memorize the next unmemorized spell every 10 points).

I still don't like the ring items. They add unnecessary inventory management and clutter -- just make magic points a new mana bar and call it day (with a new, rare item repleneshing mana points in large chunks, a la the quartz flask, perhaps).


3. Weapons

The mage's weapons have a few balance issues. The fifth weapon (beetle launcher) and seventh weapon (purple volcano) are weak relative to the others: the fifth weapon in particular has extremely low DPS, to the point where it is only useful for killing low-risk targets like melee packs and chaos serpents. I'm wondering if the beetles were intended to home in one enemies -- if so, they are bugged and no longer do so. (I would also allow the beetles to fly -- or at least "hop' a bit -- as this weapon is also quite annoying to use.) The volcano weapon similarly has low DPS: using the sixth weapon (red finger of death) kills faster for less mana! The flames on the ground are useful against crystal golems, though. Speaking of the red finger of death, it is probably slightly overpowered currently.


4. Items

I would tweak some of the capacity values (in particular, increase the number of Disks of Repulsion and Mana Batteries you can carry) but for the most part the items are well-designed. One quality of life suggestion: automatically turn items into gold if you walk over them and already have full capacity.


5. Level scaling

I was prepared to hate level scaling with a passion, but after the first few levels (where every time I level up and increased Strength, it felt like enemy HP had just increased to preserve the status quo) the scaling is so minor to be barely noticeable. Please do *not* take this as a suggestion to increase enemy level scaling (which I consider to be a bad mechanic whenever it appears in games, as it disincentivizes leveling up).


6. Monsters appearing out of nowhere on the map

I still hate, hate, hate that they do this. There's a tradition in Hexen of making monsters appear *randomly* after every few minutes you spend on a map -- at least Serpent: Resurrection doesn't do that. But it's still incredibly annoying and I wish it weren't there (previously locked doors opening up and new enemies streaming out of them is fair game, by contrast). At least I know that every time I enter a building, I need to backtrack all over the map looking for the new enemies that have surely spawned somewhere.


Map by Map:

1. Lystern Harbour: I love the various bits of lore scattered around here, but I wish the town weren't so barren. Some extra sidequests -- reporting the thief's hideout to the guards, for instance, and something to do in the various drydocks -- would spice things up.

2. Barron Sea: People complain that this trip is boring, and they're not wrong. Not sure what can be done about that, though. Also, I think the ship's cannons are bugged: the shots never seemed to fly high enough to hit the Death Wyvern.

3. Eastern Shore: I'm not a fan of the architecture here: the huge, expansive terrain is a pain to navigate around (I do like the ruins, though), the trees would be better as objects, and the slopes cause problems with the monster AI (they get stuck on the slopes for some reason).

4. Village of Gaea: A fine map. The pushbutton secret is devious.

5. Village of Prometheus: Another great map, the best in the first hub, probably. The key area down under the cracked walkway is especially notable.
One suggestion: the fire potion makes you immune to the lava, but not to the fireballs that fly everywhere in lava areas (this is also a problem later in the volcano). It would make more sense if you were immune (or at least heavily resistant) to both.

6. Village of Uranus: I don't like this map. There's something interesting in the idea of a "flying village" but I don't think is the best execution -- the infinite chasms aren't too visually appealing and fighting monsters in three dimensions is incredibly annoying, due to camera issues that occur when you look too far up or down at an enemy (if enemies used 3D models instead of sprites this would help.) The key maze is also much more annoying than fun.

7. Village of Oceanus: The underwater area is a bit barren (other than the shipwrecks, of course) and the sharks and piranhas tend to swarm into one area where they are easy to pick off from the surface. The key area, as well as the gameplay where chaos serpents are breathing at you from the buildings across the lake, are quite well-designed.

8. Church of Selene: Great map. Very fun boss fight. The "lightning trap" that D'Sparil summons towards the end, though, can cheaply kill you out of nowhere if you happen to be standing where it spawns, though.

9. Dauthi Marshes: Usually I hate Stalker levels but this one is OK. The fog helps a lot. There is some weirdness that occurs with nomonsters linedefs at the top and bottom of some of the sloping water -- also, the stalkers seem a bit bugged, as if you hurt them they can become stuck on random frames as they keep swimming through the water.

10. Dauthi Volcano: Best map of the second hub.

11. Chasm of Fire: Another fine volcano map. The secrets are a pain to get, for the same reason mentioned above: the fireballs are just as deadly as the lava itself and the potion of firewalking offers no protection. Also, maybe add a message if you try to toss in D'Sparil's gem before the end of the game? (And why shouldn't you be allowed to do this?) I kept trying to do so before eventually giving up.

12. Monastery of Selene: Ok.

13. Haunted Reaches: Eww. My least favorite map of the hub: *all* of the enemies here are annoying, there are deadly platforming puzzles galore, and a severe lack of mana.

14. Meditation Chambers: Good map. The cells are the most egregious example of the "enemies popping out of nowhere," though. Each and every cell causes some enemies to appear on the other side of the map.

15. Storage Cellars: Another great map.The tree secret area is a bit... WTF... though.

16. Sky Sanctuary: Yes!! Please add more puzzles like these.

17. Icefields: The side areas are great, the the middle is in *desperate* need of some fleshing out. Right now all of the Wendigos just travel to your location; once you deal with them the main section of the map is super boring.

18. Dauthi Montain Pass: Meh. I don't really like this map: lots of annoying melee packs, annoying boss, so-so architecture. The rest of this hub is great, though.

19. The Lost Temple: Great map! Fun puzzles, fun fights. The "water" and "fire" areas are a bit unbalanced, though: I would add more side areas to the fire half.

20. Frozen Fortress: Best map of the whole game. There *really* needs to be a Frankenstein boss to cap it all off, though.

21. Palace Dungeon: I love the water level puzzle here. What happens if you raise the water level before rescuing the prisoners? Do they drown?

22. Palace (all levels): Another set of nicely-designed levels. The horn and axe keys are a bit hard to find -- a hint somewhere would be helpful -- but otherwise a great final level. Love the souped-up Heresiarch.

23. Outerworld: The Eidolon fight is worthy of a final boss. I wish he were even harder.

24. Race home/Lystern part 2: I hate rushing through levels without killing all of the monsters. The race makes sense here, though. The final level is OK... it could be even better, to end a great WAD on a high note. For one thing, the enemies don't actually seem to be actively attacking the palace: they are must milling around town, and can't seem to open the palace gate. They should be storming the palace -- with Selene, Banedon, and the palace guards actively fighting them -- when you arrive.

[Frozenwolf150]

I've run into an annoying glitch. Items in cabinets tend to spawn several feet higher than they're supposed to, so that they're stuck in the ceiling of the cabinet instead of floating within easy reach. I hate to waste my Jump Boots just to get every item, so I end up having to abandon a lot of items. I especially noticed this in the Village of Prometheus during my recent playthrough. I'm playing as the mage character, so I can't jump high enough to grab them either.

Has anyone else run into this problem? Does anyone know what's causing it? I'm using the latest version of the mod, and the latest build of GZDoom.

[Ed the Bat]

This is a known problem due to how the handling of polyobjects changed a few years ago. I had it on my to-do list to go through the game and try to fix instances of this in my custom bugfix revision, but I haven't gotten to it.

[Frozenwolf150]

Yeah, sorry, I just noticed a few pages back that someone else had already asked the same question.

I did run into a different issue as of late though. When I use the Porkalator on an enemy, I can't seem to hit the resulting pig. All of my weapons go right through it. Meanwhile, the pig can still bite me to death. The pig can still die if another enemy hits it, or if I repulse it off a cliff. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I'm playing as the mage this time.

[Ed the Bat]

'Fraid I can't reproduce that one. Pigs seem perfectly vulnerable to me.

[Frozenwolf150]

Farm pigs that are already roaming the map are perfectly vulnerable, but Porkalated pigs seem invincible. I encountered this glitch using the Porkalator on the Air Elementals in the Haunted Reaches map.

[Ethril]

Farm pigs that are already roaming the map are perfectly vulnerable, but Porkalated pigs seem invincible. I encountered this glitch using the Porkalator on the Air Elementals in the Haunted Reaches map.

Aren't Air Elementals incorporeal (+GHOST) and therefore immune to certain weapons? Maybe that transfers over to the pig morph?